Julia gasped as her body pressed against his hard lines. She had known he was not a man who’d spent his life in idleness, but now she could feel the evidence of his exertions in every hard ridge and plane of his muscled torso.
His mouth teased hers as he explored her lips with his. He sucked and nipped and finally his tongue slid along the seam of her lips, coaxing them open. Julia tried to pull back. She had been kissed, but this was more than kissing. This was far too intimate.
“Kiss me back,” he murmured, his warm breath tickling her cheek. “Show me what you like. What Slag will never taste.”
She didn’t know what she liked. No man had ever asked, and she’d not thought it mattered. She did like the press of his lips on hers, not rough and demanding but coaxing. His question both thrilled and terrified her. “I don’t know,” she whispered.
“Then let me show you what I have been wanting to do for two days.”
“I shouldn’t.”
“No. You shouldn’t.” His voice was black velvet caressing her as surely as the hand on her lower back made soothing circles, branding her through the thin layers of her robe and night rail. “You really shouldn’t.”
And that was all it took. Her father had always called her obstinate and headstrong in part because her first reaction when someone told her no was to raise her chin and do whatever it was she’d been ordered not to do anyway.
She might be three and twenty now, no longer a child, but she still could not abide being told what she should and should not do. Something defiant and rebellious took her over when she heard those words. Instead of doing what she had planned—pushing him away—she brought her hand up from where she’d clenched it at her side and fisted it in the hair at the nape of his neck.
His hair was surprisingly soft and silky, and she twined it around one finger, pulling his head down and closer to hers. Then she kissed him back. First she simply pressed her lips to his. He made no objection, though she’d felt him stiffen slightly, as though in surprise. He didn’t even move to kiss her back. He made no move at all, except that after her lips joined his and they stood there, joined, his hand curled against her back.
The pleasure of that simple movement rushed through her, and she wanted more. She wanted to be closer to him. She wanted both his arms around her, holding her, touching her.
Her mouth moved against his and then parted slowly. He seemed to hold his breath until she screwed up her courage and touched his lip with the tip of her tongue.
And then everything seemed to happen far too quickly.
Ten
Neil had held himself so still and so tightly he was all but vibrating. When the woman had slid her hand into his hair, tickling the back of his neck, he had almost pounced on her. And then when she’d kissed him, he’d wanted to devour her. He’d held himself in check, not wanting to scare her, until she’d darted that small pink tongue out and slicked it against him.
That was when he lost all control. No man could have controlled himself under those circumstances and with that sort of temptation. He held her ripe body in his arms, nothing but thin layers of silk and lace—and God, he knew what that lace looked like—between them. She was soft and warm, and she smelled sweet and clean. Perhaps if he buried himself in her, he’d forget the stench of cannon smoke and burning flesh.
He lifted her off her feet and pressed her hard against the wall as his mouth came down to claim hers. He’d been playing with her before, giving her a chance to flee, giving her a taste of danger, but he was through with games. He took her mouth as a parched man takes his first sips of honeyed water. His mouth all but invaded hers, not softly or lovingly but with a need that was almost more than Neil could control.
How long since he’d felt such a need for a woman? Had he ever felt this ferocity of need? He slanted his lips over hers, invading her mouth with his tongue. He’d been half-afraid she’d fight him, but her tongue lashed his right back. Her lips met his with an ardor that mirrored his own. Her grip on his hair was so tight it hurt, but he welcomed the pain. It kept him centered, kept him from losing himself completely.
He might want her with a fierceness for which he had no compare, but he still had his limits. He was no Slag. He would not take her. If she was a virgin, he would not be the one to rob her of her innocence.
Their mouths met again and again, and Neil could not seem to have his fill of her. He was a man who had perfected the art of kissing. For most men it was an appetizer, but for him it had often served as the main course. He knew how to tease and tantalize with his mouth and his tongue, but he could not seem to control his movements. He could think nothing of skill or giving pleasure; he could only take and take and take from those sweet, supple lips. He tried to slow the kiss, to draw it out, to pull away from her lips so he might kiss her throat or the hollow behind her ear. No matter how he tried, he could not make himself leave her lips. He told himself One more kiss, one more kiss a dozen times and still his mouth sought hers.
Finally, she was the one who pulled away. His vision was blurry, but he could see the color high in her cheeks and the way her breath hitched in her throat. Slowly he became aware that he’d forced her into the position of wrapping her legs about his waist so she might keep from falling. His erection was cradled between them, and though he had no intention of freeing his cock from his trousers, if he had, he would have easily been able to thrust into her.
He looked down at their joined bodies and immediately wished he hadn’t. Her robe had fallen open, and the lace across the bodice of her night rail concealed very little. Her pale breasts spilled from the lace, the pink nipples pressing their hard tips against the intricate pattern.
“I can’t breathe,” she whispered. “I can’t think.”
Neither could he, but he couldn’t seem to find the words. Nor could he drag his gaze from the lovely expanse of flesh where her robe had opened.
“Put me down,” she ordered.
Neil gritted his teeth, but he obeyed both out of respect and out of habit. He forced himself to step back and to separate his body from hers. It proved harder than he’d expected. Far from feeling sated after touching her, kissing her, and feeling her skin beneath his fingers, he only wanted more of her.
Lady Juliana slid toward the door, and Neil took another step back, proving he would not snatch her back into his embrace. “I didn’t think my touch so distasteful to you, my lady,” he said as she all but stumbled over her feet to move out of his reach.
“It wasn’t distasteful at all.” She pulled the edges of her robe together, covering herself. Neil felt the loss of the sight of those perfect breasts acutely. “That’s the problem.”
“It is a problem,” Neil agreed.
“It cannot happen again.” She kept her hand at her throat, clutching her robe as though it might shield her from her attraction to him. And that was what it was. He knew what he’d felt when he’d kissed her. What he’d felt when she had kissed him. She was attracted to him and desired him as much as he wanted her.
“How do you think to prevent it? There’s obviously some sort of”—he gestured to the space separating them—“pull between us.”
She straightened her shoulders. “Well, we shall simply have to ignore that…pull, as you call it. We are both adults. I am a lady and you a gentleman. Surely we can control our baser instincts.”
When she spoke like that, so haughty and self-righteous, he felt he would rather strangle her than kiss her. But when he looked down to avoid glaring directly at her, he noticed she had lost her slippers and stood barefoot on the carpet. Her toes were small and round and peeking prettily out from under the white folds of her robe.
And just like that, he wanted her again.
“We should set an example for the children,” she said, warming to her topic. “Surely they have seen the worst in humanity. We should strive to show them the best and the purest.”
Neil looked up at her, one brow rising. “If you are looking for a paragon of virtue, I am not he.”